Beyond Babylon

by Igiaba Scego

  Mar took in her surroundings. The café was a little off. People were arranged so that their eyes met. The terrace was where people went to see and be seen. It was a game, seasoned with shisha and mint tea. There were normal couples, young people who’d returned from France (or Italy?), marriage-ready girls joined by their older brothers, tourists in kitschy attire, businessmen from some other Arab country, a few African delegates. Everyone looked where they weren’t supposed to. Those with husbands looked at the other men, as did those with wives. They played with fire without burning themselves. There was the self-righteous man with expensive clothes, lacy scarves, shoes made in Italy. Those transgressive, desirous stares cost virtually nothing. The men threw themselves on smug unaccompanied tourists. They were brazen, bordering on obscene. It wasn’t a café, it was a stage. Everyone acted according to his or her role.

  She sipped the citronade. A moment of calamity’s absence, which felt like happiness.

  Then three kids arrived. Patricia was with them. A Patricia in flesh, bones, blood, and brain matter. A Patricia white like cream. Her name was Katrina, like the hurricane that wiped out New Orleans.

  The vacation changed course.

  THE NEGROPOLITAN

  Today I met Miranda. A super-mega-ultra-freakin’ sensational woman. Extraordinary, phenomenal!

  OK, OK. I’m out of breath, I’m excited. I’m going to end up vomiting the kebab I ate for lunch. I still don’t really understand all that’s happened to me. This whole day was out of the ordinary. I don’t tend to meet people like that at Libla. To be honest, I don’t often run across a Miranda type outside of Libla either. This marvelous human lives in my city, in Rome, and I’ve never met or even walked by her. Just saying Miranda doesn’t do her justice. The red-headed diva from Sex and the City is also named Miranda, but this one is completely different. She’s a serious, real woman. Saying her full name is the way to do it: Miranda Ribero Martino Gonçalves. No diminutives. She looked at me with those green eyes of hers and said, “Call me Miranda, nena.” Her voice is like honey, a sweet lullaby that cradles those who hear it. Part of it is because she’s Argentinian, from Buenos Aires. All Argentinians sound like singers to me. They don’t talk, they hop between notes. The Argentinians are nice people.

  She sat near me during the placement exam.

  The Bourguiba School is a big deal. The placement test is a big deal. The people there are insane: the ones who put in the effort, the ones who stress out, the ones who get lost in all that exposed skin. I greeted Lucy at the entrance. Her test was on the first floor. Mine was on the third, Room 19. I walked to the staircase. The scene was like a procession into Our Lady of Mount Carmel. We went at a snail’s pace. It took me an eternity to walk up three flights of stairs. They were all crooked and warped, slippery, too. If people hadn’t been there to cushion me, I would’ve fallen as usual.

  I noticed the worried faces as soon as I entered Room 19. Mine also became troubled and drooped slightly. I mean, I had to take an exam, right? I’m scared shitless by tests. I remember the hardest one I took was in linguistics. I didn’t understand anything about Saussure and I was taking a course on the Basilicata dialect. It was a torment worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. Commotion in my mind and stomach. I left a mess in the toilet. In the end I scored a hundred on the exam, but I still don’t know a thing about Saussure.

  I threw myself like ballast on a rickety chair and waited for something to happen. I was alone in the room. I had no one to talk to. Everywhere around me, Japanese people bustled about with their cellphones as others buried their noses in books. I felt very much like a prehistoric woman: I only had a ballpoint pen and a pitiful notepad. No sign of my Arabic grammar book. Prehistoric, and a bit moronic. They’d send me back to studying the alphabet, I thought, with the children and novices.

  Then she entered, wearing a burgundy Gypsy skirt and a white chemise with red glitter in the center. Simple. I looked at her undyed hair. Cool, I thought. She’s not afraid of her age. My mom is constantly dying her hair. “Put the veil on, Mom, why do you torture yourself?” Mom looks at me as though I’m stark mad and rebuffs me when I touch her hair. It is sacred. Her Majesty is wronged as soon as you make a negative comment. Mom doesn’t trust me when it comes to aesthetics. “You would let your hair grow out if you cared about yourself as a woman.” Mom can’t stand my perpetually short hair. “I’m comfortable, Ma,” I tell her. She shakes her head. She doesn’t believe it. I don’t believe it. She knows me well, she knows I’d be happier with longer hair. She knows I’m afraid of being a woman sometimes. It’s because of what happened to me at school when I was little. They made me feel grimy in that hellhole. Mom knows it, that’s why she’d like me to grow out my hair. So that faith in the woman I have inside myself will be restored. Doctor Ross agrees with my mom about the hair. She says that underneath, however, is a little girl suffocating the woman I became. The little girl wants love, but I offer none. How many people am I made of? Many, Doctor Ross says. I must believe it.

  Miranda’s hair is very long, though, straight and tousled. The out of place hairs give her character. You can tell she’s a rebel. She sat next to me, looked over, and said, “Sabah el kheer. Buongiorno.” I didn’t say anything, I didn’t respond. I made an O shape with my mouth: wonder. I had to say something, I know, I know. At least try to respond. I said to myself, “Now she’ll think I’m stupid,” but it was only my heart beating three thousand miles an hour. I knew this woman with the straight hair well, Miranda Ribero Martino Gonçalves. I knew her before she opened her mouth and looked at me. The picture on her books shows her as young, beautiful, athletic. The original that I had in front of me didn’t deviate much. At home, in Rome, I had all five of her poetry books.

  I know her Calle Corrientes, my favorite, by heart.

  Miranda is great with Arabic. She knows the ten Arabic verb forms very well, while I barely know five. I think they’ll put her in the third level. I don’t know where they’ll put me. I hope it’s not with the Japanese people who only talk on their phones. I have nothing against the Japanese, in general. Great people! I adore Haruki Murakami. Nothing but respect. But the ones in my class are an alienating mob. I don’t want to become like that. Miranda says they’re just guarded. Maybe she’s right and I’m stupid. They’ll make me start again from the alphabet. Arabic is a real headache, and cursed is the day I decided to study it. I like it, but it throws me off. I’m no longer sure of anything. The grammar is a sadist’s creation. Certain things don’t get through to me. It’s a bona fide scourge. Though, when it comes to individual words, I know many. I get it, it doesn’t count, Somali has many Arabic words. But damn, that has to count for something, right? I mean, no one in the world speaks it, I’ll never do anything with it, but at least it helps me understand a smattering of Arabic words and a handful of swears. They murmur curse words on the streets here. Someone approached me once. He whispered a hieroglyph in my ear. Had he taken me for a whore? The men seem starved of women. They look at you, they undress and seduce you. It’s scary. I’ve never enjoyed being looked at by men as though I were some kind of cream puff. I don’t like the idea that, later, they might try to eat me.

  After the test, Miranda and I went to a kababery. We found one near the synagogue on Avenue de la Liberté, on a traffic-plagued corner. I’d seen it as I walked past in the mornings and said to myself, “Never here.” Miranda explained to me that the sleaziness of the locale meant nothing. “Everything here is a bit dingy. It’s good, you’ll see.” I approached the server. I told him, “Shawarma, please.” I didn’t know how to say much else. My tongue was stuck. He shoved everything he could in the flat bread. Greens, onions, yellow sauces, spicy sauces, multicolored sauces, meat and, lastly, French fries. I felt bad. I can’t eat whatever that is, filled with fat and fries. I’ll fall right on my ass. I thought about my large, round African buttocks. I don’t want to make the situation worse. My expression was grim. What can I do? Tell him no thanks, I don’t
want it, or pay and then toss it? Behind me, a line of the famished had formed. The kebaber gave me a dirty look. Fearful, I took out my purse. I was in a tizzy searching for coins. I looked at them. Problem: I didn’t recognize them. I looked again. Nothing. I didn’t understand what he wanted from me, what the heck I was supposed to give him. He muttered something in Arabic, then something in French. I don’t know which language is worse. I gave him a random banknote out of desperation. A girl with a violet hijab and eyes outlined with kohl looked at me and sneered. Maybe I gave him too much money. What the hell did he say? I didn’t understand. I didn’t even know what I was about to eat.

  Then came Miranda’s turn. I took notes. Miranda had been in Tunis for five days. She arrived early to spend a few days by the sea. She’d already been to La Marsa and Sidi Bou Said’s terrace. “We have to go together,” she informed me with a slightly foreboding tone. I looked at her and jotted down note after note. I was learning the art. Me, the lowly disciple. Miranda stared Mr. Kebab in the eyes without fear, sin miedo. She said the magic word, bila. I repeated it internally like a mantra. Bila, bila, bila. It’s a little Arabic word that is fundamental for surviving here in Tunisia. It means “without.” Miranda looked at him and pointed to the food. She said bila basal, without onions, bila sauce, without sauces, bila fil fil, without pepper, bila fried, without fries. In the end, her kebab wasn’t obese like mine. It was simple. Inside it was khadrawat, veggies, and meat. The requirements for a balanced meal. Then we went back to Bourguiba. Miranda convinced me to take the afternoon Tunisian dialect lesson. I was tired, but I consented. I’d just scarfed down my oversized kebab. My stomach couldn’t handle it. There I was, sitting in the lesson, belly bulging with riotous gas.

  Miranda and I didn’t find spots near one another. She sat beside a big watery-eyed German. I’m near a girl who is all curls. Her name is Agata. She seems very diligent. She already bought the dialect book. She’s skimming. She has pants with red flowers and an orange undershirt. Her curls are insurgent and welcoming. She smiles at me. There are lines on her forehead. That smile of hers doesn’t come easy. “I’m from Padua, you know?” she says, as if justifying herself. “We have a sense of duty over there. Too much, if you ask me.” She reminds me of Shirley Temple, but she told me she used to be a hothead. “Remind me to tell you about Chiapas.” Shirley Temple mixed with Subcomandante Marcos? I’m curious. I want to pull her out of this muggy room and take her to a coffee shop to get a mint tea with pine nuts. This country’s tea is perfect for loafing around and chatting. Agata, let’s get out of here. The lesson hasn’t started and it’s already dragging.

  I don’t manage to tell her in time. A gaudy lady sits down and starts reciting a list.

  Eighteen people are in the class. There are a handful of Japanese students, some Spaniards, and many other nationalities. There are Italians, obviously. I don’t understand why they say Italy has zero population growth. You find Italians everywhere in the world, each with an Invicta watch, a cellphone, and that attitude of “I’m dying, give me a coffee” etched on their faces.

  “Sabah el kheer.” Good afternoon, the lady says to us. I’m in the second row. I see that she has beautiful eyes.

  “Sabah el kheer,” she repeats. She points to someone in front of her. The professor shakes her head. She shakes it harder, violently. The person in front of her is a little old French lady. I can tell from her Jeanne Moreau hairdo. How old is she? Seventy? Older? She is wizened, thin, with a long neck. Fuck, making yourself study Arabic at that age takes guts. The Frenchwoman understands that she is to repeat the teacher’s words. One by one, we repeat Sabah el kheer. How lovely, I say to myself. I feel like I’m in kindergarten. We repeat good afternoon. Then she makes us repeat good evening. How are you? I’m well, thank you. And then, how is your family? How’s your aunt, your hightailing cousin Berta, Lassie who’s on her way back home, and why not, Oum Kalthoum’s hamster. Oum Kalthoum is one of the reasons why I study Arabic. Her voice burrows inside you and pelts your heart. It makes me weep. She’s like Roy Orbison with Moira Orfei’s hair, but her voice…it’s heaven.

  This feels like a lesson for barbarians from the Pleistocene period. None of the eighteen in the room are interested in merely repeating the obvious. Agata puts her heart into it. I’m fed up, like hightailing Berta.

  Recess. I’m a little girl. I sprint out of the room and stand alone in a corner. Agata, the Paduan, stays behind to study. Someone is approaching—a boy with the hint of a moustache. He’s cute.

  “Soy Luis,” he tells me. “Soy cubano… he oído que hablas español.”

  Modestly: “I speak everything, my Latin American brother.” He talks to me about Cuba. I forget about Tunisia.

  “Mañana si quieres vamos a la playa,” and I almost burst out singing Righeira, but I restrain myself.

  Do I tell him yes? This is no ordinary school. Everybody invites you somewhere. Everyone makes friends. I say yes. He cashes in with a big smile. The Cuban is handsome. He has amber skin, large eyes, curly hair. He’s tall. It would be nice to fall in love with someone like that. It would be healthy. I never fall in love in a healthy way. Usually I tie myself to other people’s dilemmas. Smiles frighten me, I know there could be something behind them later. Happiness, possibly, or muddied serenity. I’m attracted to the mysteriousness of faces. The things I can never make change are faces, walls, and mules. I’m positive. No sex, it’s a no-go. I’m thirty years old and still afraid of sex. I haven’t looked at my pussy in ages. There might be cobwebs.

  I look for Miranda. “Let’s go to the ocean tomorrow.” It’s not a question. She doesn’t respond. It sounds like an order. She says to me, “I hope my daughter can come too.” She has a daughter? What I’d give to be in her shoes.

  Among the eighteen people at the Tunisian Arabic lesson, there’s one unusual boy. He has an extremely long face and a great wall around his heart. He needs help, I can tell. I feel affection for him right away. The Cuban—his positivity, his smile—is wiped away. I lose my bearings in this other whirlpool. Tonight I’ll dream of him. He will suckle at my breast. Mine, his mama’s. I search for Miranda. I want to be rescued from my pesky infatuation. I look for her. I want to forget about the Cuban sucking my breast.

  I look for Lucy. I need to be rescued. I don’t want that boy suckling me. I’ll either fall in love with the Cuban or somebody else. I know how it ends if I get attached to these problematic types. It ends with me suffering and hurt, feeling like a dump and strangulating the little girl inside of me who can’t seem to become a woman.

  Lucy, my friend, where are you?

  I see her surrounded by a group of old blond fogeys. I catch and drag her away. I have to show her the boy who stilled my heart with his long face.

  “Where are you taking me, for the love of God! Careful, you’re rumpling my dress. Malick is outside, you know? He’s waiting for me. He says he’ll tutor me in Tunisian.”

  Malick, still? He’s an animal! I don’t say it. I only say, “I’m not wrinkling your dress, but you know…” I don’t finish the sentence. She reads my mind.

  “Oh, Holy Child of Love Divine. You’re in love again! Make sure this one isn’t a fag. I’m begging you, please.”

  “A fag? Quit it, Lucy…”

  “Quit? Have you forgotten your great love Leonardo Pietrosi? Or as he demands to be called now, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert?”

  “Actually, he goes by Cher.”

  “If you have to wrinkle my dress, at least let me see a good show. A real man. One fag was more than enough for me!”

  I don’t like when Lucy calls Leonardo a “fag.” You know, it was tough with him. She reminds me constantly that the love of my life turned out to be gay. I know, I messed up, but in the beginning he’d assured me that…of course I could see the meandering gait, but he was always hurting his leg, he did Latin American dance in the evenings. He used too much violet perfume, I can’t argue with that, but even authentic celoduro machos in
Tunisian salsa use an assortment of perfumes. And yet it seems that they like women quite a bit. He could’ve told me this from the get-go. He could’ve spared me a year by his side. I dubbed so many CDs for him. He wrote me letters. We went out so little. Then he confessed of having known a guy named Rodolfo. Rodolfo was a fag’s name. I should’ve known he wasn’t just a friend.

  No, he’s not a fag, Lucy. Come look in his eyes. And then, Lucy, tomorrow we’ll go to the sea with a Cuban and an Argentinian. I’m more or less on solid ground. Believe me, Lucy. Watch us and see, he’s not a fag. Only a wall. I don’t want to be his mama. I don’t want to protect him. I don’t want to hurt myself. I don’t want to suffocate the girl inside me again with a demented love.

  I want to feel protected, Lucy.

  Help me so I don’t suffocate the little girl. Lucy, I beg you, help me save her.

  THE REAPARECIDA

  I lived the years between the godforsaken World Cup and the Malvinas War like an invalid, leaning on Pablo Santana. I felt a love for him that knew no limit. Knight Pablo, unknown friend. He stung me with his disregard.

  We never made love. One evening he told me why: “You are contaminated.” That night I found out he knew about Carlos. When I’d seen him on Via dei Sabelli, with the bag of groceries, I was merely the sister of Ernesto, a compañero, so I was also a compañera.